Sustainable Youth Ministry by Mark DeVries

Title: Sustainable Youth Ministry by Mark DeVries.

Pages: 224.

How it was obtained: I bought it from Amazon.

Time spent on the "to read" shelf: 2 months.

Days spent reading it: 4 days.

Why I read it: Susan and I saw Mark DeVries at a youth ministry conference. We were really impressed with his presentation (we only had the abbreviated version of it too!). We looked at each other and decided right away that we would be picking up his book. Definitely worth it.

Brief review: Sustainable Youth Ministry is a general guide to the confusing world of youth ministry. Mark DeVries walks his readers through both the abstract and the practical.

DeVries has great organization for this book. He opens a topic and then explores 4 or 5 subpoints for the topic. He covers everything from ministries that are stuck to church politics. I actually finished this book a few months ago. I underlined a lot. As I was flipping through it again tonight, I thought to myself, "it would be good if I read through this book again, at least the underlined points." Why? DeVries covers so much information, it is impossible to absorb it all in one reading. The best part is that so much of this book is practical. It is easy to immediately implement many of his suggestions.

This is definitely a niche book. It's only going to be helpful to people concerned with youth ministry. But for those in youth ministry, I can give no higher recommendation for a book. This is a treasure trove of guidance from a youth ministry veteran. You must read it. Not much else to say.

Favorite quote: Youth workers who don't feel over their heads, who don't feel they're overwhelmed and failing at times, may simply not understand their jobs.

Stars: 5 out of 5.

Final Word: Practical.

Inside the Mind of Youth Pastors: A Church Leaders Guide to Staffing and Leading Youth Pastors by Mark Riddle

Title: Inside the Mind of Youth Pastors: A Church Leaders Guide to Staffing and Leading Youth Pastors by Mark Riddle

Pages: 182.

How it was obtained: I purchased it along with some other ministry books from Amazon.com.

Time spent on the "to read" shelf: 3 months.

Days spent reading it: 2 days.

Why I read it: I am always looking for good books about ministry and youth pastoring. I thought this might be a good one to read.

Brief review: This is a book about hiring youth pastors. It also deals with developing relationships between staff members.

One thing this book does well, it breaks down good and bad reasons to hire a youth pastor. Riddle argues that a youth pastor should not be hired to take away ministry from church volunteers who are too busy to work with youth. A youth pastor should be hired for strategizing and coordinating. A youth pastor should be a support for the church ministry as a whole. I like how Mark Riddle talks about not hiring a youth pastor just because it has always been that way, or the church needs someone to take care of the kids. Youth ministry should be a church-wide ministry, not just a place for the youth pastor to minister alone.

The second half of the book deals with develoiping the relationship between a senior pastor and a youth pastor. I thought there were some good ideas in this section. Riddle talks about cooperation, having a mentoring mentality, and teamwork as keys. The very last section of the book deals with some odds and ends including sections on unwritten expectations of the congregation (fix my kid!), number comparisons, and a short chapter on part-time youth pastors (those poor souls).

This book was a quick read. I think it would be great for a search committee to go through (if they are willing to think through the process differently than it has been done before). I think it would also be a great resource for a senior pastor and youth pastor to go through together, especially if rifts have started to develop in their relationship.

Favorite quote:
The stereotypes of the youth pastor who can't be bothered with theology and the senior pastor who can't be bothered with the reality of modern culture are fading. Over the last several years, I've seen an increase in the number of youth pastors who are deeply engaged with theology through reading and dialogue. I'm not suggesting that they're parsing systematic theology, but they are reflecting on the nature of their beliefs as they relate to youth ministry and your church. More and more youth pastors are seeing the importance of letting theology inform how the local church does ministry. This is an exciting time to be working with youth pastors.

Stars: 4 out of 5.

Final Word: Mindful.

Youth Ministry 3.0 by Mark Oestreicher

Title: Youth Ministry 3.0: A Manifesto Of Where We've Been, Where We Are, And Where We Need To Go by Mark Oestreicher.

Pages: 155.

How it was obtained: Ordered it with some other youth ministry books.

Time spent on the "to read" shelf: None. I read it right away. (I just didn't write my review right away).

Days spent reading it: 1 afternoon.

Why I read it: I'm a youth pastor, so I figured I'd like to hear what Mark Oestreicher had to say about where youth ministry needed to go. Mark Oestreicher (aka Marko) is president of Youth Specialties, a leading company in youth ministry resources. I heard about this book through Marko's blog (www.ysmarko.com).

Brief review: Youth Ministry 3.0 is Marko's attempt to talk about the previous, current, and future direction of youth ministry. The book includes a brief discussion about adolescent development, a brief history of youth ministry since post-WWII, and then a few suggestions on how we can take youth ministry to the next step.

The center thesis of this book seems to be that youth ministry has gone through two phases already, and is about to enter the third phase. Phase one was driven by proclamation. It was centered around evangelism and teaching. Phase two was driven by programs. "Bigger is better" would be a favorite slogan. This phase focused on discipleship. Many churches are in this phase right now. But as youth ministers we know there is something wrong. Kids are dropping out at ridiculous rates (it is not uncommon to hear statistics that 80% of kids drop out of church after high school, this number seems to be inflated, but you get the picture). We know somethings wrong, so what do we do? Marko proposes phase three which would not be driven by any particular motivator. Instead it is present (or incarnational).

So the question is obviously how do we get to an incarnational ministry from a program (or even proclomation) driven ministry? Marko offers up a few solutions. We can focus on smaller groups, and literally have a youth group for each sub-culture in our youth. We could focus on making our youth ministries a place for a supra-culture--where everyone comes together and no one group is better or dominate over the other groups. Finally, we could have hybrid of the two. Perhaps a large group for some events, and a small group for others.

Honestly, Marko's ideas are aimed at larger groups. Although he addresses the question of how smaller groups can incorporate this kind of thinking (on pgs. 95-96) it seemed forced. Seeing that I work with about 20-30 students, many of his ideas on how to move to Youth Ministry 3.0 seemed impractical or unnecessary.

I'm not convinced Marko has the solutions, but at least he is willing to think outside of the box to create some discussion about this topic. It is important to wrestle with, and I think this book has created great discussion and thought on where we need to take youth ministry in the upcoming years in order to stay relevant to a culture that changes every single day. One great thought Marko has at the end of the book is that youth ministers need to begin to consider themselves missionaries. We are becoming more and more distant from the culture we are attempting to reach. In order to be effective we need to begin thinking like missionaries. We need to begin studying youth culture like we would other cultures around the world. (Should youth ministers begin to take missions courses in college? That's probably not a bad idea...)

Every youth leader should read this book and wrestle with the thoughts, problems, solutions, and overall structure of their youth ministries. There are many great little gems in this book. I underlined a lot of it as I read and digested the ideas. It only takes about 2 hours to read through. The book is short, the typeset and spacing are large. It is definitely worth the investment.

Favorite quote: "We must live incarnationally, positioning ourselves humbly and openly on the somtimes cold, dark, and scary stairwell to the underground of youth culture."

Stars: 4 out of 5.

Final Word: Challenging.